Opera Software ASA

If you received the error message "There was a problem initializing Opera Mail. Engine Init() Failed", it may mean that you have a stand-alone (USB) installation of Opera. Although a stand-alone installation is not usual using our installer, this may sometimes be possible. For example, you may have chosen to install a test version (alpha, beta and so on) as a stand-alone installation.

A stand-alone installation will install your profile in the Program Files folder, which is not writeable unless you are the system administrator.

One solution to the problem is to convert your stand-alone installation of Opera to a multi-user installation of Opera. You should first check that you do in fact have a stand-alone installation. Select the menu item Help > About Opera, and consider the paths. If your Mail directory is located in Program Files, you have a stand-alone installation of Opera.

To change to a multi-user installation of Opera, follow these steps below:

1. First, take note of the file paths shown in Help > About Opera [1].
2. Close Opera.
3. Open "operaprefs_default.ini" from the main Opera folder in a plain text editor.
4. Change the lines as follows: "Single user: [System] Multi User=0" and "Multi user: [System] Multi User=1".
5. Save and close "operaprefs_default.ini".
6. Restart Opera, and you should have clean new profile folders under the Application data folder for the current user.
7. Take note of the file paths shown in Help > About Opera [1].
8. Close Opera again.
9. Copy the Profile and Mail folders from the main Opera folder to the directories noted above, replacing the newly-created profile files (these can be overwritten).
10. Open "operaprefs_default.ini " from the new Profile folder in a plain text editor.
11. Update all the file paths you find there to match the new locations.
12. Save and close "operaprefs_default.ini" and, you're done.

[1] Default folder locations for multi-user installations when using Windows XP:

• Main (installation) folder is likely 'C:\Program files\Opera\'
• Profile folders can usually be found at one of the following locations:
  • 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Application data\Opera\Opera\profile\'
  • 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application data\Opera\Opera\profile\'
• The mail directory is usually one of the following:
  • 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Application data\Opera\Opera\mail\'
  • 'C:\Documents and settings\username\Local Settings\Application data\Opera\Opera\mail\'